On 14 January 1978, during the Sex Pistols’ final tour date at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, the band played a Stooges cover, ‘No Fun’, as their encore.
At the end of the song, Johnny Rotten, intoned an unequivocal: “This is no fun. No fun. This is no fun – at all”.
As the final cymbal crash died away, Rotten spoke to the crowd with anger and said: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
I took my son to the fifth day’s play at The Oval on Sunday.
I had managed to get the tickets last winter in an Ashes splurge that has taken me around the country this summer watching four out of the five Tests, and more days cricket than I can even admit to my partner.
Along the way I have cheered and shouted, been engrossed and absorbed, annoyed and exasperated, bored and all played out.
And through it all, my friends and I and all the people we’ve met up and down the country have enjoyed this series with the good humour and passion of true cricket fans, whether they be Antipodean or English.
I have sat next to Aussies at Trent Bridge and Durham and talked of Bradman and Warne, Warner and Root, Manly and St Kilda, and everything in between.
Friendships have been made with exceptional Australians that my friends and I have met over the course of this summer that I hope will continue long after Ashton Agar has retired.
In my own version of planes, trains and automobiles I have travelled in packed Inter-Cities and speeding cars, crap taxis and slow buses, drunk extortionately priced wine at Lords and downed two-quid pints in working men’s clubs in the North East.
I have blagged pavilions and nightclubs, nearly trod on Glenn McGrath’s foot and grabbed a chat with Andrew Strauss. I have found magical curry houses and been haunted by disturbing paintings of Stuart Broad.
I have seen the ball of the series, the man of the series, and a Middlesex Aussie make his mark in the series.
I have seen redemption and pain, catharsis and controversy. I have seen an Aussie youngster bat in a fairy tale and watched KP play as if he was writing one. I have even seen Tony Hill giving a masterclass in farce.
I have slept yards from the iconic Angel of the North, and nearly nodded off with Big Ben in sight on Friday at the lack of purposeful batting. I have been sunburnt and soaked. Pissed, hammered, hungover, lost, ticketless and potless.
But I have enjoyed every minute of it.
Up until four overs to go tonight.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame Michael Clarke (for what it’s worth I didn’t boo him either) for what happened. I don’t blame Mitchell Starc.
I don’t blame any of the Australian team for their complaints about the light being unsafe for bowling and fielding.
In other news I don’t even blame Boof calling Broad a cheat. And anyway, I heard the interview – if he had spoken to Ian Botham in the same vein I would have taken it more seriously. In the end it was a knockabout line on a knockabout show.
I don’t even blame the umpires, Aleem Dar and Kumar Dharmasena.
I certainly don’t blame any of the Aussie team for their timewasting tactics today – and let’s face it if Clarke hadn’t been so adventurous in his declaration the game would have finished with exactly the same result in bright daylight two hours before what actually happened.
I respect the Aussie team just like I respect Aussies and Australia in general. I lived there for 18 months and loved it many moons ago- why wouldn’t I?
No, this is top level sport, there is no time for niceties or the invocation of the fabled but inexact ‘spirit of the game’.
As a Middlesex member there are paintings in the Long Room to two of the most controversial figures in cricket: WG Grace and Douglas Jardine so let’s not kid ourselves that cricket is some innocent sashaying through the dark satanic mills of professional sport.
It’s always been thus. Cricket has never been the sporting and fair-minded arcadia that certain types want to portray it as.
Of course that doesn’t mean as cricket lovers we don’t see the game as an instruction in even-handed morals from time to time (mostly when it suits our team) or the fact that I genuinely believe that having a love of cricket simply makes you a better human being.
No, with those four overs to go, what made me furious – absolutely bloody furious – was the ICC.
For their hatred of Test cricket. For their lack of common sense in banning runners. For their scrapping of the Test Championship (until 2017 they say).
For their appearing like a loud acquaintance with a complete lack of self-awareness, constantly looking to shift the blame.
But mostly for their ridiculous light ruling. I looked at their website when I got back from The Oval tonight.
There was actually a line that read: “The players were ordered from the field as the crowd looked on incredulous, still buzzing with adrenaline but with the finish to the game taken away”.
Taken away by who? The ICC regulations that’s who.
Being the sad man that I am, I even downloaded their playing handbook. They proudly state in their mission statement to ‘promote the game’. Sadly I fail to see how they did that tonight.
I am not angry because a potential win has been taken away. Who’s to say it would have been a win?
With 21 needed from four overs it was anyone’s game. If Matt Prior and/or Chris Woakes had got out who’s to say the total would have been reached?
Who’s to say a revitalised attack wouldn’t have run through the exposed tail to create cricketing history?
Of course it was improbable. But sport is improbable. Cricket is improbable. Nothing is certain. That’s why we love it.
But we were robbed of that finish. Robbed of any sort of finish.
What I felt annoyed about was not being allowed to watch an enthralling end to an enthralling day’s sport by a ridiculous ruling that turns those who officiate into uncaring automatons with no discretion in the matter – and ultimately robbed Test cricket of a denouement for the ages.
We saw the most number of runs ever on the final day of a Test – 447 runs – and 17 wickets.
We saw old warrior Brad Haddin claiming his 29th dismissal – the most by a wicket-keeper in a Test series beating the record of another Aussie gladiator Rodney Marsh.
And, with his second innings, Bell managed to equal the 562 runs scored by Denis Compton in 1948, the most by an England batsman in a five-Test home Ashes series.
Clarke also ran it close of being only the fourth captain – after Garry Sobers against England in 1968, Hansie Cronje in the unforgivable fixed match at Centurion in 2000, and Graeme Smith against Australia in Sydney in 2006 – to have declared twice in a Test match and lost.
This was enthralling Test cricket as the world looked on. This was a chance to spread the gospel or simply to entertain long suffering believers.
My young son who has fallen for cricket just we all did years ago – suddenly and with blind passion – had asked me excitedly a short while earlier, ‘who’s going to win dad?’ I honestly couldn’t tell him. The game as we all know ebbed and flowed.
KP scored the fastest English 50 in Ashes history. Mitchell Starc bowled an over of such precise variance that I thought I was watching a video clip that had been clubbed together.
My son loved it. I loved it. We were as gripped as the rest of the sell-out crowd that was growing increasingly frantic with uncertainty.
What other sporting event could give you the high velocity tempo that we had late on today?
Test cricket examines temperament, technique and character and skill. On days like these it also offers supreme entertainment.
Going into the last hour all four results were possible. Admittedly some more than others but the tension was building, as was the hope.
The atmosphere was raucous, every run was cheered towards the end, and pantomime villains booed; the whole crowd was gripped.
You could tell they were as the beer snakes tailed off, the triumphant singing fell away to be replaced by a guttural roar that gave you goose bumps and made my son smile in wonder at the drama of it all.
And then the ICC had to ruin it all with an inflexible rule that made no concession to supporters, to players, to officials, to television viewers, to all those who love Test cricket and wanted to see an enthralling end to an absorbing – if not a classic – series.
It was the strangest end to an Ashes Test match I can remember. And I’ve been to a few of them in my time, the first being at the very same ground 28 years previously.
I can never remember a more unedifying way to end a game – to end a series – as the events that played out there tonight.
“Why can’t they play on dad, it’s going to be a brilliant finish isn’t it?” my son asked in his youthful innocence, his face a picture of disappointment.
“What do they know of cricket who only cricket know,” wrote a great Trinidadian.
He could have been talking about the ICC.
CLR James and Johnny Rotten had it right.
comtede
Guest
ps good article ....and all yours Geoff.. rant over! i'm not angry just find all this Clarke eulogising a bit much to take
ChrisUK
Guest
Of course they would. Matt Prior openly said as much. I can well accept light can be an issue if there are no floodlights. You can't have them playing in pitch dark with the fast and nasties bowling bouncers, but when you have lights, just get on with it. Incidentally, the idea that the fielders are in danger is the biggest load of nonsense ever. Amateur cricketers can't honestly say they know what being worked over by a 90mph bowler in poor light is like, but they can say they know what fielding in far, far worse light than that is like. Ever felt in danger? No, me neither. A 10:30 start the other day wouldn't have made any difference, except that we'd have lost overs as it turns out. Because it was wet. Forcing teams to bowl their overs would solve it though. Both England and Australia slowed it down when it suited them (understandably) but it's down to the umpires to stop that, and the ICC to come down like a ton of bricks on those that don't. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for failing to bowl 15 an hour - Australia bowled 21 in the last hour at Cardiff four years ago - and if they do that, we wouldn't still be playing at 20 to 8.
Geoff Lemon
Expert
Clarke was spot on. The lux reading was 5.8 at The Oval, and was more than 8 at Old Trafford when he was sent off.
Geoff Lemon
Expert
Definitely, Chris. Had England been eight down at the same point, they'd have been off like rabbits, and we would have complained about them not staying on. They were happy to come off against Siddle late on day three. Light should not ever be a reason to come off, at any time. Some teams have to bat 20 minute sessions between rain delays. Some have to bowl with a wet ball. Some have to bat when it's cloudy and swinging, or the sun is in their eyes, or the floodlights are on. So be it, and deal with it. Oh, and the ECB starting at 10:30 on extended days wouldn't hurt either...
Geoff Lemon
Expert
Your best piece yet on The Roar, Layth. Brilliant evocation of the series and your experience of it. I wasn't as disappointed - I thought the ending we had was still thrilling, and still fascinating, and will still stay in the memory a long time. With Bell just run out, Prior may well have played and missed a few and then holed out, and it would have been fascinating - the draw far more likely, the win still there but fraught with risk. The way Woakes was playing I'd have backed him to get home. But even though that didn't happen, it was nonetheless a fascinating way to end, and still brought on an adrenaline high. Well played, well met, and we'll see you next time.
ChrisUK
Guest
What a lovely article. On the light issue, we have to be honest in that every single team, every single captain, would have acted just as Clarke did. There is not the slightest scintilla of blame that can be attached to him in any way. Nor to the umpires, who couldn't possibly have carried on without being unfair to Australia in terms of the current regulations. But imagine if the series was 1-1 and England were 7 down. We would all have loved to see it finish, one way or another. And the trouble with the regulations is that they wouldn't have allowed it. It hasn't come out of the blue, ever since these regulations were in place it has been pointed out that something like this might happen, indeed something like my scenario WILL happen. The essence of the light regulation is safety. Does anyone really believe that anyone was in danger? As Bob Willis always says, "show me the bodies". There will come a point (without floodlit grounds) where danger does become an issue, but no Test match these days gets remotely close to that. England fans will well remember Thorpe and Hussain batting against Waqar Younis when it was far, far darker than any match played now - and we had a thrilling finish. Poor light is just an environment and should be treated as such. When the ball is swinging around corners, no one says that's unfair. If we have floodlights we should never go off for bad light. Yes, it's difficult with a red ball. But it's not dangerous. Difficult is no reason to go off. It's not a biased view by the way, the same applies absolutely had it been the other way around.
swerve
Guest
Enjoyed reading that LY. Well written mate.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Michael Clarke commented that it seemed a lot darker and harder to pick up the ball than it had on several other days where they'd been taken off for bad light. It's an interesting thing, they often talk about the batsmen being able to pick the ball up, but they are actually the ones with the most advantage to pick up the ball as it gets darker. They get to see it coming out of a white sightscreen. Fielders picking up the ball out of varied backgrounds as it darkens can become exceedingly difficult. There is a reason why they had to go for a white ball when they started playing day-night cricket. You simply can't pick up a dark red ball that well, even with powerful lights on.
Chui
Guest
Thank you for such a great read, and I share in your disappointment. Did I read correctly about the difference in the light reading when play was stopped days earlier? Bizarre.
AlanKC
Guest
Gripping reading Layth, thank you. Excellent points and very well made.
Pope Paul VII
Guest
Beautifully written L.Y.
Andrew
Guest
Test Cricket is almost dead. Even the Ashes series can’t set it alight. Imagine the lack of interest when Australia play New Zealand or Sri Lanka. But that is what Cricket Australia want. They want the Big Bash to be successful and for test cricket to be meaningless.